


you yourselves were once foreigners

by JulisCaesar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 12:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulisCaesar/pseuds/JulisCaesar
Summary: Interactions between wizards and Muggles have always been more than just secrecy and fear. A look at humans, magic, politics, and religion over time. (Chapter 1: 1492.)





	you yourselves were once foreigners

**Author's Note:**

> This is one part of what will be a multi-chapter exploration of wizard-Muggle relations. At the end of the chapter are translations and sources.

**Valencia, Aragon. July 29, 1492. 5 th of Av, 5252. **

Judah Marimunchel looked up from where he was folding shirts to pack in a chest in order to glare better at his wife. “You should be packing.”

Shoshanna Marimunchel glared right back at him. “There are more important things to do.” She was holding one of his nicer doublets.

“The thirty first,” he said tightly, “is in two days. There is nothing more important than packing right now.”

She sighed, and looked at him like he was a worm. It was a very familiar look to Judah: his family were common merchant-traders, while Shoshanna came from a family that produced a rabbi every generation. “And how were you planning to pay for anything?”

He put down the shirt in his hands. Rocking back on his heels, he said, “I was under the impression we couldn’t take any money.”

The Edict of Expulsion had been issued four months before. In that time, Judah knew, most Jews had been waiting, praying that something would change.

It had not. In two days, they had to leave Spain, convert, or die. Judah had chosen to leave, as had most of his family. Why not? There was nothing left for them in Spain, after all.

Shoshanna just rolled her eyes and handed him the doublet.

He nearly dropped it in surprise at the weight. “What did you—?”

“They can’t take the money they don’t find,” she said sourly. “Open it.”

Judah unhooked the fastener and stared at the dozens and dozens of little pockets sewn into the lining of his doublet.

“One coin in each so they can’t make noise.” She wiped her hands on her skirt. “That should buy us a plot of land somewhere.”

He stood up and pulled the doublet on, admiring the way it hung from him now. “I thought the first problem was getting passage out of here,” he said slowly, feeling like, once again, his wife was several steps ahead.

Shoshanna looked away in a way that meant she was uncomfortable. “I already have a way. A safe way. I didn’t tell you because I thought…”

“If you’re going to say you thought I wouldn’t believe you,” he said, approaching her, “think again. I married you for a reason.” Here he was on comfortable ground. Shoshanna, he felt, was too smart for her own good with a mind that ran leaps and bounds ahead of any common sense; to this he provided understanding and acceptance, and often a wry comment that put rest to her fears.

She smiled slightly and kissed his cheek. “Well, then, it’s with David. He has a way out.”

“ _David_?” he squeaked, emphasis on the second syllable. “Your little brother David?”

Shoshanna gave him a look that said, plain as day, _this is why I thought you wouldn’t believe me_. “Yes, David. He can get us out, safely. For free.”

He stared at her. David was younger than Shoshanna and a rabbi’s apprentice. He wasn’t remotely the sort of man Judah would expect to be in the business of smuggling humans.

She threw her hands up in the air. “Follow me downstairs if you will, but there’s no better option.” She turned and marched down the stairs to their main room.

After a moment, Judah followed her. It wasn’t the first time his wife had confused him, nor would it be the last.

Shoshanna went to the fireplace and reached into a vase that had been a wedding present from her family to pull out…powder? He watched, bemused, as she bent down and threw the powder into the flames.

And the fire turned bright green.

Judah stumbled backward and bumped into the stairs. Sometimes rabbis dabbled in alchemy, he knew that, but he had never suspected his _wife_ of being involved in such.

“Stay where you are,” Shoshanna said to him before kneeling down and—he jerked forward in spite of her words—putting her head in the flames.

There was no screaming or smell of burning. Judah had been to an auto-da-fé but this was not that; Shoshanna was very still, but he didn’t think she was in pain. He intended to have a good talk with her about this alchemy but she had moved deliberately and he was sure she had reason.

Indeed, minutes later, Shoshanna pulled her head out of the fire and stood up. Her hair was unburnt and still tucked up under a kerchief; although her face was worried, there were no scorch marks on it either. “Stay back,” she said, stepping away from the fire herself.

Confused, he remained where he was. “Shoshanna—” He gestured at the fire.

Shoshanna didn’t say anything—she didn’t have to. There was shortly a second head in the fire, followed by shoulders and arms, and then his brother-in-law was shoving himself out of the kitchen fire and onto the floor, accompanied by a shower of soot.

“That works better with a fireplace, I swear,” David said, standing up and brushing himself off. “Shalom, Judah.”

Judah stared at him. “Shalom, David.” Wordless, he waved a hand at the fire—which, as he watched, faded from brilliant green back to orange.

David grinned. His beard was scraggly, in large part because he was only twenty one. “Floo powder, isn’t it grand? Rabbi Moshe was the first to get permission from the English to use it, but it was Rabbi Yochanan who worked out the formula, and since then we’ve been adding families to the web, but it’s been slow going, thanks to Their Majesties.” His eyes flicked upward. “Oh and I am sorry for adding you without asking first, but I figured you were in a bit of a hurry.”

Judah blinked. He had understood every word in that but the first, only David seemed to be using them in new ways and he hadn’t at all explained why the fire had turned green and was spitting people out in his home.

Shoshanna blushed. “I haven’t told him,” she said to David.

David looked between his sister and Judah. “Huh,” he said after a moment. “Well. I have a bit of a schedule to keep to, so what if we take you somewhere safe first and _then_ you can have a very fascinating conversation with just the two of you. Where’re your bags?”

“I was in the process of packing,” Judah said, feeling like he should take some control over this situation. “What do you mean _we_?”

David raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean you’re not done yet? You only have two days.”

Judah thought that was rather condescending of him, considering he still had soot on his nose. “It’ll be done tonight,” he said firmly. “I’m not going anywhere until you’ve explained.”

Sighing, David ran his hands through his hair. “I really am serious about the schedule. Perhaps this: I have a way to get you and Shoshanna and all your possessions to Marseille, and there onto a ship to Constantinople? All you need to do is pack.”

Judah stared at him but his brother-in-law, while often flippant, rarely went back on his word. “France closed the borders. We can’t get through.”

“We can.” David calmly met his eyes. “I promise you, I can take you somewhere safe.”

After a moment to consider, Judah nodded. “I will need a hand with the chests, then.”

 

Less than an hour later Judah had finished packing all their movable belongings. Furniture would have to stay, as would most of the pots and pans, but experience packing trader’s wagons helped him fit almost everything else in.

David wasn’t tapping his feet but seemed awfully close to it. “Good? Good.” He pulled a narrow stick out of his doublet and waved it over the closest chest.

Judah watched in astonishment as the chest shrank to the size of a thimble. “Not an alchemist,” he said quietly. “A _witch_.”

“A sorcerer,” David corrected, and shrank the next two chests. “A witch gets her powers from the Devil. I do not.” He turned to look at Shoshanna. “Ready?”

She looked around at the bare walls and empty kitchen. “I had better be.”

David bent down and scooped up the chests into one hand, then held the other out to Shoshanna. “Judah, take her other hand and try not to breathe.”

“What?” Judah said.

David did something, turned himself somehow, and the world turned with him. Their house’s stone walls turned the colours of the rainbow and then twisted and blurred together. Judah could no longer feel stone under his feet, just Shoshanna’s hand in his.

Then everything rushed back in, and stone walls were replaced with wood. Judah felt the urge to vomit and swayed unsteadily on his feet.

David took their chests back out and restored them, looking smug. “Welcome to France.”

Judah swallowed hard, trying to get his footing back under him. “I want my explanations.”

Looking abashed, David said, “It’s a little complicated but…I am a sorcerer.” He turned bright red just as another man entered the room. “Apprentice. A sorcerer apprentice.” Hastily he put the chests down and returned them to their original size.

“In training,” the new man said dryly. “I am Rabbi Yochanon ben Ezra. I assume you are David’s family?”

Judah bowed instinctively. “Rabbi. I am Judah Marimunchel of Valencia and this is my wife Shoshanna.”

Rabbi Yochanon smiled. “Shalom. You have some questions? Let me get you seating first.” He pulled a stick from his robe—a stick just like David’s—and waved it several times. Each time, a wooden chair sprouted from the tip and fell gently to the floor.

Judah stared at the chairs and the rabbi in equal measure.

“Ah,” Rabbi Yochanon said gently. “No one explained to you, did they? Just pulled out a wand and cast magic without pausing to think of you.” He smiled. “I stood where you are, once. I was smaller then, but the same effect.” He sat in the closest chair, folding his hands in his lap.

Judah shook his head. “I’m just a merchant. Now I’m to believe that my brother-in-law is an alchemist?”

David scoffed. “More than that, Judah. A _sorcerer._ ”

Rabbi Yochanon looked sternly at David. “We do not mock those who have not had the chance to learn.” As David looked abashed, the rabbi turned back to Judah. “HaShem gave to all of us gifts. To some of us, he gave a spark of creation, which we call sorcery.” His voice was calm but intense. “It is a gift, and a tool. It can be misused, and you must be taught how to work it. It can be found in families, but not consistently. Some children are born to parents who know of sorcery only what the goyim preach.” He inclined his head. “Others,” and he looked at Shoshanna as he spoke, “are born to sorcerous parents but have no magic of their own.”

“Our parents are sorcerers,” Shoshanna said quietly. “But I never had any…” She shrugged, eyes sad. “So when I was old enough for shidduch, my parents looked for a man who I could be an equal to, not a lesser.”

Judah looked at her and sat in one of the provided chairs. “You gave up more than their money,” he said, surprised he was no longer bitter over the difference between their families.

“I _gained_ ,” she said with quiet heat, but cut off at a gesture from Rabbi Yochanon.

“Many sorcerers become rabbis, as one leads naturally to the other,” the rabbi said. “And many of us have been watching the progression of events in their Majesty’s court with apprehension. And some of us,” here he smiled wickedly, “have been preparing ways to rescue the Jews of Sepharad from the Inquisition.”

Judah nodded, beginning to get his bearings again. So his wife was descended from sorcerers. So what? There were weirder things. Their neighbours, the Elhyanis, had converted to Christianity even before the edict. “Hence, France.”

Rabbi Yochanon looked pleased, wrinkles forming around his eyes. “The goyim sorcerers put protection of sorcerous blood first—whatever religion we follow. It was simple to convince them to allow us access to some of their buildings as a waystation. They cannot allow us to stay, not as Jews, but it gave us, the sorcerers, somewhere to bring people so at least they would be safe.”

For the first time Judah saw through the friendliness and warmth to the dark bags under Rabbi Yochanon’s eyes. David also looked tired, although he was bolstered by youth. “How do the goyim explain it? Sorcery.”

“Similar to us,” David said. “They think it comes from the Christian god. Because it’s divine, it can’t be the sorcery mentioned in Shemot 22:17.”

Rabbi Yochanon nodded. “It is convenient for us. They do not approve, of course, because we are Jews.” He looked tired, and old, and bitter. “But they allow us to stay here for a few days, and there are more ships here to Italy that will take us than there are in Valencia or Barcelona anymore.”

Judah looked at Shoshanna. “You didn’t tell me.”

She flinched, and he immediately hated no one so much as himself for doing this to her, for making their situation that much worse.

“A conversation that there will be plenty of time for on the ship,” Rabbi Yochanon said smoothly. “Tomorrow I or David will give you directions to the docks—they aren’t far—where you can purchase passage.”

Shoshanna looked at David. “And why didn’t _you_ tell _me_?”

David, to Judah’s surprise, didn’t get angry or offended. Instead he said quietly, “When? And how?”

There was a silence.

“Tell you that I was putting myself in danger every day? You know what they’ll do if they catch me, a witch and a _heretic_ ,” he spat. “Tell you that I haven’t slept properly in weeks because every day, dawn to dusk, I’m taking messages and plans to people who are so ready to believe their Majesties will change their minds—” He breathed out hard. “How should I have told you that?”

Shoshanna went pale, but rallied. “You should have told me that you had a way out for me. I didn’t know until I asked.”

David sighed. “I should have, you’re right. It slipped my mind.”

Rabbi Yochanon cleared his throat. “David, you need sleep. I will take care of your family.”

David bowed and left the room.

“We have been working without pause since the edict,” the rabbi said, without judgement but with some urgency. “There are many, many Jewish sorcerers who have hid themselves out of fear, and we have been trying to find them all, to give them ways to escape without conversion. And we have,” he looked directly at Judah, “we have been teaching those who will not leave how to pass as Christian. How to fake it so the Inquisition will not catch them.”

Judah felt himself flush. “Is that not one of the exceptions of pikuach nefesh? To commit idolatry, to worship another god?”

Rabbi Yochanon shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps it is. Perhaps at the end of this life, HaShem will judge me for it. I will tell him then, I acted only out of a wish to save lives. I think in this day, it is better for us to worship in secret than not to worship at all.”

For a moment, Judah could only stare at him. Of course he had heard of rabbis telling their congregation to convert rather than leave. Yet in Valencia, his own rabbi had spoken strongly against conversion, false or true. “Rabbi—”

The rabbi raised a hand, eyes sad. “There is nothing you can say to me I do not already say to myself every night. Only…it is easier, now that I am acting, to sleep.”

Judah sighed and said, “A good idea for us all, I think.” Whether he cared for Rabbi Yochanon’s behaviour or not, the rabbi had helped save them. That was worth being polite.

“Indeed.” Rabbi Yochanon paused and looked at Shoshanna. “Your brother is very brave. But I must warn you, you are more like to find a new home than he is.”

Shoshanna went stiff, and Judah stood to take her hand. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that tomorrow and the day after we will be traveling to every town in Spain to save who we can. If we are caught, if we grow too tired to escape…” His face and voice were both solid and firm. “I have no doubt we will join the Ten Martyrs. We can only hope to approach their examples.”

Shoshanna flinched. “HaShem could ask no more.” She held Judah’s hand tight. “Thank you for taking us in, and thank you for teaching David. _I_ can ask no more.”

Rabbi Yochanon smiled faintly. “What else could I have done? Stood back and watched? That is not in our nature.” He took in a deep breath. “Now. Go, sleep. Tomorrow will be busy.”

Judah watched him for a long moment, and then bowed. “I, also, thank you. There are few who would do what you are doing.”

“That,” Rabbi Yochanon said, “I am all too aware of.”

Judah could only guess at how many of these sorcerer rabbis had turned their backs on their people in fear. With another respectful nod, he led Shoshanna down the hall to a bedroom. They collapsed into bed together, not worrying overly much about their belongings. Rabbi Yochanon or David would take care of them.

Curled up against him, Shoshanna whispered, “I should have told you.”

Already blinking sleepily, Judah had to think about what she was referencing. “The magic? Perhaps. It’s done now. Tomorrow you can tell me the whys and wherefores.”

She moved closer. “You’re not angry?”

“No,” he said immediately, and then slower, “no. Confused and sad. We’ve been married three years, I thought there would be trust from that. But angry? Not when you’ve given us the chance to be safe and whole.”

“Good,” Shoshanna said, and they both settled in to sleep.

Tomorrow would be the docks and the ships bound for a new land of freedom and, Judah was sure, magic. Tonight, they slept.

 

**Translations and context:**

**5th of Av, 5252: The date in the Hebrew calendar. The 9th of Av (Tisha b’Av) is a day of mourning as it was the day when both the First and the Second Temples were destroyed, as well as a number of other disasters for the Jewish people.**

**The Edict of Expulsion: Also known as the Alhambra Decree, this was issued by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile on March 31, 1492. It gave the Jews of Spain until July 31st to leave the country or convert to Christianity.**

**Auto-da-fé: The process of the Inquisition issuing penance and punishment to condemned heretics (particularly Jewish converts to Christianity) followed by the secular government carrying out the punishment. While burning at the stake was not the only or the most common penance, it was the most emblematic of the whole procedure.**

**HaShem: Hebrew for "the name". Used in speech to avoid saying one of the names of God.**

**Shidduch: In Judaism, the process of matchmaking.**

**Sepharad: The Hebrew word for Spain, from which Sephardic and Sephardim are derived.**

**Goyim: plural (singular goy) Hebrew word for non-Jews.**

**Shemot 22:17: The same verse as Christian Exodus 22:18 (the system of numbering verses differs slightly in the Torah vs the Old Testament) which reads, per the King James Version, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”**

**Pikuach nefesh: In Jewish law, the principle that the preservation of human life overrides all other religious obligations but two: murder and sacrilege/idolatry. Almost since the beginning, there has been debate over whether a false conversion to save your life constitutes idolatry.**

**The Ten Martyrs: Ten ancient rabbis executed by the Romans for their practice of Judaism. They are commemorated every year on Yom Kippur.**

 

**Most of the background information comes from _Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors_ by James Reston, and the relevant chapters in  _The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD_ by Simon Schama. **


End file.
